Vamp or Not? Replace

Replace is a 2017 body horror directed by Norbert Keil and after vacillating between this article or just outright declaring vampire and reviewing the film I decided to run with the ‘Vamp or Not?’ because I want to explain my motivation for classing this as part of the genre .

It is kind of difficult, sometimes, to watch a film and know that, whether consciously or otherwise, the filmmakers have essentially took the core strictures of the genre and built something with it. You then suggest it might well fall into the vampire camp and people nod in that way that suggests they believe you are mad/obsessed/both.

opening corridor scene

The underlying genre aspect reared its head right from the beginning. Having seen a female figure, Kira Mabon (Rebecca Forsythe), silhouetted in a corridor, clearly blood on the plastic backdrop, we hear her speak. She states that she doesn’t want to grow old, she remonstrates that she needs *more* (though not what of). There is a Báthory-esque element to this, and it ties the film instantly to a certain sub-stratum of the genre. We then see her with Jonas (Sean Knopp), their conversation set around the gender politics of aging, they go back to his place and she strips…

the strange skin condition

In the morning she awakens and he is not there. She leaves to walk home, ringing a friend who hangs up on her (given what we discover, it isn’t clear who she is speaking to). She finds herself back at his apartment but somehow she has the keys and, as she moves around the apartment, we realise it is actually her apartment. She washes her hand and notices that the skin has become white and flaking. She has an hallucinatory flash where she sees a child.

Rebecca Forsythe as Kyra

She finds a photo of her and Jonas and notices that the skin condition has spread to two fingers. The skin rips to raw flesh beneath. There is a knock at the door. She looks through the spy hole and sees two elderly ladies and then she collapses in pain. By the time she opens the door they have gone but a neighbour, Sophia (Lucie Aron), appears and catches her as she collapses again. In the flat Sophia suggests that they had not met before but she moved in a few months previously and had been hoping to meet Kira. She does not recall Jonas at all. They have a drink and a glass is broken, ripping some of Sophia’s skin. Kira takes it and places it over her flaking skin and it seems to absorb, replacing the small patch of flaking skin it touched.

creepy doctor in creepy clinic

So, as things progress kira goes to a clinic to see a doctor, Crober (Barbara Crampton), who suggests that she has been treating her for some time (in her really creepy, black and red décor clinic). Kira has complained about memory loss previously. Crober gives her a script for pain relief whilst she does tests (though the pharmacist suggests it is for a cell rejuvenator). Overnight the condition spreads and she goes to a less salubrious hospital – but the doctor is of no use. She sneaks into the morgue and cuts skin from a corpse but it does not absorb – she is nearly caught.

Lucie Aron as Sophia

She goes to a bar and, at the end of the night when she is the only customer, she follows the barmaid into a cellar area and attacks her. She stabs the woman in the neck and cuts the skin from her and this takes, curing the spreading decay. What we then discover is that she seems to be suffering from a cellular degeneration of the skin cells, which are ageing and dying rapidly. To cure this she murders, to take the skin and layer it over her own. So in the vampiric sense she is maintaining youth but, rather than bathing in blood ala Báthory, she is stealing skin but she is murdering in order to do so.

hallucinating what should be

The further twist (and so spoiler) is that the creepy surgery is behind all of this as Kira was an elderly woman who was prepared to do anything to regain her youth and (amongst others) volunteered for experimental (and obviously dangerous) treatment. The visions she has are resurfacing memories of her old life, of her husband before he left her for a younger woman, of her daughter as a little girl. At one point she hallucinates her reflection as she should be, a nice twist on mirror-lore. The ability to regenerate herself with someone else’s skin is an unexpected side-effect of the treatment but ultimately we can say she was created by science.

a victim for later use

In the end, whilst the modus operandi is stealing skin, this takes the Báthory trope and plays with it. The desperate attempt to maintain life – at the expense of another – the fear of age, the almost addictive nature of her cure (on a psychological level) are all picked from the genre and, ultimately, makes this a part of the genre. This film is definitely Vamp.

The imdb page is here.

Goatsucker – review

Director: Steve Hudgins

Release date: 2009

Contains spoilers

Whilst there are certainly quite a few films about el chupacabra – the goatsucker – I think this is the first that uses the English version of the name as its title. Now, regular readers will know that I will sometimes move into ‘Vamp or Not?’ territory as the chupacabra can fall out of Latin vampire-creature and into simple creature feature.

In this case there will have to be a massive spoiler but I think we are about right to review with the caveat that there is a were-creature aspect as well that (maybe unknowingly) almost swings back into the traditional crossover between were and vamp. It is also incredibly low budgeted.

poor hide and seek skills

So, starting in a forest and we get movement and then a woman (Megan Jones) running through the woods, pursued by an unseen something. She gets to what looks like a shed (but is named as a shack later) and has the keys to open a padlock but just can’t do it as the POV something corners the shed. Ignoring the box of firewood (or handy weapons to you and I) she hides around the back of the shed with Olympic standard “hide and Seek” prowess (not). Unsurprisingly the POV creature (ok, we all know it’s the goatsucker) finds her… claw… blood…

must be a scientist?

A guy, Huck (Steve Hudgins, The Caretakers), is in his truck. He sees something in the woods and tries to film it. Driving on he hits something… CUT... A woman in a lab coat (so she must be a scientist, right?) tells us about the goatsucker. Later we discover that she is not a scientist but an actress and the piece is an advert for Hidden Valley Hiking Tours. The idea communicated by the 'expert' that the chupacabra had its origins in medieval Europe was fascinatingly weird and not expanded on.

Jack Jones as Brad

The Hiking company has a goatsucker tour and driver Brad (Jack Jones) has come to take the latest group up to the trail. The mixed bunch are Eugene (Neil Vowels, also the Caretakers), Wayne (Randy Hardesty, also the Caretakers), Pam (Marsha Cash), Alan (Brandon Schaefer) and Rhonda (Emily Fitzmaurice). The group of strangers have more interconnections than they might think – obvious and early reveal is that ditsy Rhonda (she who believes they are on a goat-muncher tour) is obsessed with Alan, who was there to get away with her after getting bored of her. The little interpersonal subplots was one of the things that kept the film interesting.

Eugene and Rhonda

Brad drives them to meet the tour guide – Margaret (who was the girl at the head of the film, so she ain’t showing). Luckily fellow guide Heidi (Kim Welsh) happens along (it’s her day off) and is told (by radio) to take the tour or lose her job. Of course, something is out there and the scam tour is actually going to stumble over the real goatsucker. Also in the mix is Cassy (Amanda Stone) whose boyfriend was dragged off by the goatsucker and who has sworn revenge.

a flash of face

The film is low budget and so pretty much keeps the goatsucker out of view. We do see the odd claw, a flash of teeth and a figure behind a tree that is clearly someone in a silver suit. At one point we get a flash of silvered face that brings an alien to mind. Yet despite the low budget and being pretty much full of holes and deus ex moments, it is in fact quite entertaining. This probably comes down to the fact that Hudgins keeps the subplots coming fast and thick. The cast help also. Whilst none of the performances are stellar, they are all pretty darn enthusiastic and having good fun - Marsha Cash particularly seems to be having a blast.

teeth close-up

Now I said there was going to be a massive spoiler and there is – though I won’t reveal who is the goatsucker, one of our cast is. In this the goatsucker is a creature (other species, possibly) who takes on a human form. They become their monstrous self with a kiss and must drink human female blood to take on human form again. It is a riff on the idea of a were-creature but with a blood aspect. The goatsucker’s actions are remembered (and relished it appears) when back in human form and the creature chooses to turn back (by using the correct catalyst deliberately).

victim

So, unusual lore and cast having a blast but low budget issues all the way through. However this wasn’t the worst way I have spent 85 minutes. 4 out of 10 – one recommended for those who like their movies very much B.

The imdb page is here.

Honourable mention: Minutes Past Midnight

Minutes Past Midnight is an anthology of short horror films released in 2016 and contains a variety (in content) of horror shorts that were mainly of a very high standard. Segments Ghost Train and the puppetry masterpiece The Mill At Calder's End deserve special mention.

I was considering whether this deserved a ‘Vamp or Not?’ but ultimately decided it was of genre interest for two specific parts. The critter in the Robert Boocheck directed Horrific is named as Chupacabra but the short is more creature feature than anything else. Then we have what might be described as urban folk horror in the unusual Feeder, which was directed by Christian Rivers and has what might be described as a vampiric entity… I will explain, of course, but let us look to Horrific first.

more eviscerated than sucked 

One of the shorter segments and aimed as much to comedy (there are a couple of comedic pieces in the collection) as it is to horror we begin, after an establishing shot of trailer and goat, with Tex (Mike C. Nelson) who is watching a go-go dancer on VHS with his underpants round his ankles and a beer in his hand. The VHS goes off and there is no more beer, so Tex is boiling twinkies when he hears the goat. Investigating he finds not much of it left and, back in the trailer, something is moving through the cupboards and into his pile of clothes. Something that suddenly launches and takes a finger.

up close and personal

“Goddamn Chupacabra!” he announces after some makeshift first aid and then he is hunting the creature down, which leads to some amusing “whack-a-mole” with the hobs on his cooker and, when we see it more clearly, we get a creature that looks like a rather large rodent, whose mouth splits a bit like the Reaper strain from Blade 2. But do the chupacabra travel alone?

Cohen Holloway as Kingsley

As for Feeder, down on his luck musician Kingsley (Cohen Holloway) has moved into a new place where he intends to record some new songs – though his manager is less than supportive. The place is a bit of a dive and he sees a cupboard that is boarded up. He pulls the boards away and we see a strange set up of thorn branches and carving there of (and it is this that gave me a folk horror vibe). His neighbour Bex (Loren Taylor) lets herself in and loans him a vacuum cleaner and mouse traps.

the mouse

The writing doesn’t go so well – in fact he drunkenly smashes one of his guitars in frustration before passing out on the floor. When he comes round he sees a mouse outline scratched into the floor. A mouse appears in the shape and is then drawn into the floor with a splash of blood. Freaked out at first, he detects the sound of music coming from the floor and starts playing with and recording. However a new outline appears, this time more rat-sized.

all that's left

The idea that an entity (within or below the house, we’re not sure) wants flesh to be sacrificed to it, we can assume to feed it given the short's title, was interesting. However the idea that it then trades artistic inspiration for said food was fascinating. Reminiscent in some respects of George Sylvester Viereck’s The House of the Vampire, this was not quite the same. In Viereck’s book the energy vampire drains victims of their artistry and uses it themselves, so a little different but comparable nonetheless. Of course, in this, the appetite demands bigger and bigger sacrifices for its help.

folk horror vibe

So, something that some might class as a vampiric entity or presence and, whilst somewhat more critter than bloodsucker, a chupacabra. If you don’t want to class them in the wider genre they are definitely of genre interest and this is well worth catching as an anthology film. The imdb page is here.

Weresquito: Nazi Hunter – review

Director: Christopher R. Mihm

Release date: 2016

Contains spoilers

When I looked at the flick Mansquito I did so as an ‘Honourable mention’ on the basis that it was of genre interest but the lack of self-awareness in our victim/villain made it difficult to rationalise any other way than he was a man-sized mosquito. This is not the case here, our primary is very much self-aware.

I will say at the outset, however, that the blood sucking way of the mosquito is a trait of the female of the species – the male would more likely suck sap from trees… Ok, mentioned, we won’t return to that factoid.

We begin with a black screen, the sound of a woman’s heavy breathing and the muffled sound of shouting and breaking objects. Then we see, in a chink of light, that the woman (Christi Jean Williams) is in a cupboard, hiding. The door is broken, punched through, by a monstrous hand and then we see the giant mosquito head… The black and white theme is carries on through the film, adding a dimension, rather than taking away. The film reminded me very much of a 50s drivethru and kudos for adding that genuine nostalgia into the film.

James Norgard as Schramm

A man awakens and we see in blurry POV that he is in some form of hospital or laboratory. Implements adorn the walls as does a portrait of Hitler. The man realises he is chained. Into the room comes Schramm (James Norgard), mad Nazi scientist who refers to the man as Little Piggy. He talks to the man (and mocks him also) and we glean that he intends to experiment on him. That he deems the man hardy enough to survive *the process*. He is an American soldier, his tank became an inferno but he managed to escape it, was shot 17 times but is still alive.

awakening on the road

Years later and the man awakens on the road. He is John Baker (Douglas Sidney) and there is a spot of blood at his mouth – note that blood is red in this, stark against the black and white. He wipes it away with his hand. He follows the road into New Berlin. In a diner a man addresses the waitress, Leisl (Rachel Grubb), in German. She reminds him to use English. Now this isn’t some alternate America, where the Nazi’s won the war, but a town with a large German immigrant population. Baker comes in and the man notices blood on his mouth. Don’t worry, Baker reassures, it isn’t his.

Rachel Grubb as Leisl

When alone with the waitress he asks her if she knows anyone named Schramm – an old war buddy. She doesn’t. He also asks if there is a room for rent. A drunk man, Eric (Daniel Sjerven), enters – he is Leisl’s ex and demands she comes with him, which she resists. John gets involved, saves the girl and is offered a room at hers. At hers Eric comes around again, Leisl is knocked out and at the sight of her blood he changes. When Leisl comes around John suggests he dealt with Eric (by talking him round) and she lets him know that one of his leads, Hans Gruber (Christian Finch), does live in town.

confronting Gruber

So, clearly many of these upstanding US citizens were actually German collaborators and know the whereabouts of Schramm. Schramm himself has created the weresquito and so let us address the “were” aspect. Stoker suggested, “The Wehr-Wolf is but a variant of the Vampire” (Lady of the Shroud), but as the genres developed the werewolf and vampire parted company to quite an extent (which left a trope of bad blood between them and pitched them, often, as enemies). However this is not a were-wolf but a were-mosquito and so that traditional connection is strengthened by the fact that the mosquito drinks blood.

the weresquito

Indeed Schramm suggests (when experimenting on John) that blood will be all he needed to keep going as a super soldier. Schramm also has given John a trigger (and we see that he cannot change by force of will alone), which is the sight of blood. Of course John can force himself to see blood (by cutting his hand, for instance) and force a change. His turn back is after he is spent (there is a degree of Hulk envisioned here, he even mutters a “you wouldn’t like me” line). However when the weresquito he is mentally absolutely still John; aware of what he is doing and able to communicate.

Douglas Sidney as Baker

The film is clearly a budget one, but the black and white brought 50s 'B' to mind and the budget, therefore fit. The physical effects aren’t marvellous but they are adequate due to the deliberate pitching at the drive-in level. The film is 71 minutes so doesn’t outstay its welcome and there is a genuine chemistry between Douglas Sidney and Rachel Grubb that carries the viewer along – indeed Sidney comes across as very personable and very natural in his performance generally. I rather enjoyed this one, as budget and 'B' as it is (or because of that). 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

New Orleans Vampires: History and Legend – review

Author: Marita Woywod Crandle

First Published: 2017

The Blurb: New Orleans has a reputation as a home for creatures of the night. Popular books, movies and television shows have cemented the city's connection to vampires in public imagination. In the early days of Louisiana's colonization, rumors swirled about the fate of the Casket Girls, a group of mysterious maidens traveling to the New World from France with peculiar casket-shaped boxes. A charismatic man who moved to the French Quarter in the early 1900s eerily resembled a European aristocrat of one hundred years prior bearing the same name. A pair of brothers terrorized the town with their desire to feed on living human blood during the Great Depression. Marita Woywod Crandle investigates the origins of these legends so intricately woven through New Orleans's rich history.

The review: Is hosted at Vamped.

Honourable Mention: Dracula on LongShorts

I was contacted by Ana from LongShorts which is a way of real-time drip-fed storytelling either through App (available from both the Apple App store and google Play) or via the medium of Twitter. In particular she let me know about their Dracula retelling through the medium.

meeting the Count

Dracula is released in tweets, pictures, emails etc and I was reminded of the book iDrakula, in concept with a couple of big differences. Firstly, where iDrakula used the concept of the tweets and emails in a novel, this is doing it exclusively through an electronic medium (there was an iDrakula app as well, though I never used it and it was only apple native I think) and it is retelling the Stoker story, rather than just using the character.

the study

Of course, being epistolary in nature the novel lends itself to this sort of treatment and I think that doing this may well bring a new audience to the book as well as being another way to experience the story for fans. I did ask Ana some questions about the concept and the app and the story are free to download/access, the twitter feed is not app dependent and, in a move that brings the penny dreadfuls of the nineteenth century to mind, the stories available will continue to be developed as long as they are popular.

The twitter feed for the story can be found here (remember the feed will run from bottom to top).

Metal Hurlant Resurgence: Loyal Khondor – review

Director: Guillaume Lubrano

First aired: 2014

Contains spoilers

The Metal Hurlant series was a sci-fi anthology series (6 episodes per season) based on the comic book series Métal Hurlant – which was published in the US/UK as Heavy Metal. This was from season 2 and I have to say that I was not expecting a vampire episode and, to be fair, might be pushing it to describe this as vampire. But that’s my prerogative.

The first season (on DVD as Metal Hurlant Chronicles) had six unrelated episodes (bar a connection by the remnant of a living planet passing as a comet). In this season there was a continuity drawn between some of the episodes but they actually all stood self contained.

Marem Hassler as the Princess

This sees a convoy of ships from a defeated race travelling the expanse of space. They have lost their planet and the King (Marc Duret) recognises that it is loyalty to his daughter, the Princess Alaria (Marem Hassler), which is holding his people together. Unfortunately she has developed the cold disease, her temperature plummeting and her life expectancy low. On their planet there was a fruit of a tree that would prove a cure, but now?

Karl E. Landler as Khondor

Her guardian and protector has been the warrior Khondor (Karl E. Landler) and he believes that the alchemist Holgarth (John Rhys-Davies, Sliders: Stoker & Chupacabra Terror) holds the answer to a cure. Holgarth recently left the convoy and he searches him out, at first going to a grimy space port and then to the planet where Holgarth has moved to. Holgarth, it appears, has been waiting for Kondor. The warrior is the last of his race and Holgarth has an elixir of immortality for him, explicitly not for the Princess.

space vampire

But… Vampires… you ask. Well Holgarth tells Khondor what it is that can save the princess and – spoiling the entire episode – it is the blood of one of his race – all the blood. Now the reason I went vampire on this is that all of the blood is clearly not the case, given the trope-like slick of blood around their figures, but mostly this is not a simple transfusion, he cuts his own throat and she sucks the blood from him. There is no doubt in my mind that this makes the cold woman a space vampire and deserving of a place in the pages of TMtV.

we could have seen much more

Thoughts of, "why not take the elixir, then offer your blood" aside, I really like the Metal Hurlant series and, if I had a complaint, it is just how short the series is – I really would have liked to have seen more. The score is for this episode and this, more than others, suffered a tad as it could have been so much more, so much longer. Khondor was a fascinating character and the makers could take him and make a great fantasy space opera out of the character. Still, we have what we have and I’ll give that a solid 6 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.

Short Film: Confessions of a Vampire

As it appears on Amazon Prime, Confessions of a Vampire is allegedly a 2017 film directed by “Old Mill Entertainment”. If that name is familiar they were the company behind the atrocious Ghost bride of Dracula where they took a softcore film and stitched the “story” bits together and added some unconvincing establishment shots.

The difference with this is that the film they have hacked to pieces to make this is a hardcore adult film – in fact there are two films involved but I’ll explain that later. So, the scenes making up this film are from the 2007 Daniel Dakota directed My Girlfriend's a Vampire. There are nonsensical establishing shots of a castle beyond forest and scenes of a POV camera going through said forest, in black and white, non-sensical because the film clearly is set in a city and has establishing shots itself of apartment blocks and a cityscape.

the horror host

After a horror host of sorts (A skeleton with a faux-Lugosi accented dub) introduces the film, and the castle/forest establishing shots already mentioned, we start off with Van (Evan Stone, Haunting Desires & The Lair) and voices in the background. His roommate Donny (Van Damage) comes in wearing a wolfman mask. He is trying to roleplay with a woman but she wants Van gone. Donny give him some money and suggests he goes down the road for a drink, after all it’s Halloween. Once gone the film abruptly cuts away so the resultant sex scene is expunged.

Van and Demonika

Van is in a bar and tries to chat up a woman (Selina Draagen), but she’s a lesbian and blows him off. Another woman approaches him and knows his name (the fact that he looks like a Van is a running gag, apparently). She introduces herself as Demonika Jones (Ava Rose) and takes him back to hers. She sniffs around his neck but realises she really likes him and so sends him away. She goes back to the bar, picks up the lesbian, they get naked, there is an ugly cut (avoiding the sex scene) and she goes to bite her neck.

Wendy, Van and Stan

Van is trying to find out about Demonika and is back at the bar when Wendy (Diana Prince) comes in looking for Demonika and is pointed to Van. She checks his neck and his ass (vampires sometimes bite there rather than the neck) and realises that he is unharmed. Wendy is a witch and she takes him to see Stan the Destroyer (Christian) and we get the arse-about-face lore that you can’t enter a vampire’s home unless invited (or having been there previously). They give him a special dagger to stab her through the heart with but also mention that she must like him and he starts referring to her as his girlfriend thereafter.

having a quick bite

So, will he kill her? It is certain that he’ll sleep with her and that scene will be expunged to try and make a “safe film”. The film is listed on Amazon as being 47 minutes long but all this comes in at under 30 minutes. Back to the skeleton who shows us “another film”. Actually it is a faux trailer (for Easter, the tale of a killer Easter Bunny) and another butchered hardcore film under the title Student Assassin. Both of these come from an adult flick entitled Grindhouse XXX and have no vampiric element.

So, these are scenes cut out from adult movies and the quality is what you would expect. We get a marvellous moment of rubber bat but the film itself is dire – because these were stitching together hardcore sex scenes, not aiming to make an auteur cinema piece.

The butchered version of the film does not have an IMDB page at time of review.

Vamp or Not? SiREN

This 2016 film directed by Gregg Bishop was inspired/spun-off from the segment Amateur Night from the film V/H/S. Now given that I reviewed that, it might seem odd that this is a ‘Vamp or Not?’ However, the short was low on detail and this has much more detail (or at least origin) than that did.

I will say that I received some comments re V/H/S criticising the inclusion of a review for the film on a vampire blog, as the creature was (according to those commentators) a succubus. You know what, that certainly wasn’t clear in the short, definitely open to interpretation. In this there is an opportunity to again look at lily (Hannah Fierman, V/H/S, the Vampire Diaries & the Unwanted) but whilst there might be succubus traits (and the writers might have been influenced by the mythology) there are some aspects that just don’t gel with that. Be that as it may, there are close parallels anyway between the succubus and the vampire.

Justin Welborn as Mr Nyx

So the film begins in a graveyard. The Sheriff, cops and a man named Mr Nyx (Justin Welborn, Psychopathia Sexualis) enter the church. There are bodies throughout the church, a magic circle that Nyx recognises as being incorrectly drawn and bloody footprints across the floor and up columns. When the Sheriff asks if they (the dead) were Satanists, Nyx calls them amateurs. The thing (Lily) attacks the cops but Nyx speaks to her and gently puts a leg iron on her…

the stags

Jonah (Chase Williamson) and Eva (Lindsey Garrett, also The Vampire Diaries) are roleplaying, though it isn’t going too well. He’s about to go on his stag night. The trip has been organised by his ne’er-do-well brother Mac (Michael Aaron Milligan) and involves friends Rand (Hayes Mercure) and Elliott (Randy McDowell) and they go to a strip club in Garden City. The club is disappointing but a man approaches Mac and tells him that he can lead them to a happening place.

welcoming the stags

The guys drop mushrooms and then follow the stranger, getting more nervous the deeper into the countryside they go (though later it seems they aren’t too far out). They go into a secluded mansion where the security are oddly attired, some hidden within black hoods and others with blanks face masks. Led downstairs they sit around the stage and, after the act finishes, Nyx comes out and leads them off. Jonah is taken to a “peep show” and the others to a living room where the price for Jonah's show is given as their favourite memory of their mothers.

escaping with Lily

Jonah sees a girl, Lily, and she starts to sing and he has flashes of various sexual experiences. Afterwards, convinced she is a sex slave, he gets Rand and they break her out. She manages to get her manacle off and starts killing and pursuing Jonah (as does Nyx). So what do we find out about her. Well she is devilish or demonic – summoned into our plane. She can produce bat-like wings and a long, dexterous tail and her hands/feet can transform into talons. She is also strong, for she can carry a man off. There is the obvious siren aspects – the name of the film for one and the song that mesmerises men and makes them relive sexual experiences or see ideal partners. Now Bane (as a source example) does not list sirens as a separate vampire type with their own entry – though they are listed in her encyclopedia as a variant of “mermaid vampires” and a couple of listed vampire types are said to have “siren-like qualities”.

post chomp

Lily is obviously a reference to Lilith, who has connection to both the vampire and succubus myths. Succubi are often eaters of energy through the sexual act – and thus an energy vampire – however Lily doesn’t seem to be such a thing (presumably she consumes flesh, and we do see a couple of neck chomps, but we primarily see her simply killing by tooth and claw). Lily does physically mate with Jonah – indeed she rapes him by singing and making him believe he is with Eva and then penetrates him (whilst she is atop him) with her tail. However Nyx suggests that her kind mates for life, not the behaviour of a standard succubus.

wings

So, we have definitive demonic origin (in V/H/S this was not certain and she could have been another, albeit supernatural, species) but we have the very specific siren song. We have the sexual connotation and yet a monogamous aspect. She is more “with it” than in V/H/S where she seemed more ethereal and appeared to have less of an interest to what was happening around her. In V/H/S she was just there, perhaps using her apparent vulnerability to hunt, in this she was summoned and then enslaved.

That broader knowledge pushes me away from Vamp – though she does have some connections in through Lilith and through the succubus aspects, which makes me place this as something of genre interest at least. Not Vamp.

The imdb page is here.